Page:H. D. Traill - From Cairo to the Soudan Frontier.djvu/41

Rh for a large steamer, but it is better than absolute rest—for those, at least, who want to reach their journey's end; and if you were only sure of being able to keep it up you would be in a position to make a fairly accurate guess at the time at which you will reach your destination at Ismailia. This, however, is just what you cannot do; and it is the impossibility of doing it that lends so "sporting" an interest to the Egypt-bound travellers' passage through the Canal. Facts on board ship are always hard to come by, and the earnest seeker after truth as regards the vessel's movements, dates of arrival, hours of departure, and so forth, is usually led to the conclusion that the object of his search is to be found nowhere but in the bosom of the captain—if there; a circumstance, however, which does not in any degree check the confident circulation of statements varying through every degree of inaccuracy on the authority of the more "knowing" among the passengers. But this is a case in